Contents

Gameplay

Shoot the Bullet works like a normal danmaku game, with one main difference. You still have to dodge bullets that are thrown at you, but you are unable to shoot at the boss to deal damage. Instead, you must use Aya's camera to take a certain amount of pictures of the boss. To assist the player, Aya's camera is capable of eliminating all of the bullets within the viewfinder when a shot is taken, even if the boss is not within the photo. The shot is considered successful when the boss is featured in the photo, and it will be given a score based on certain criteria including the amount and type of bullets in the photo. The bosses included in this game come from the games Embodiment of Scarlet Devil to Phantasmagoria of Flower View.

Name and Concept

The concept of Shoot the Bullet had existed since Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. ZUN experimented with the idea previously, but the results didn't satisfy him, and the concept was placed to the side. A character who takes pictures needed to be created, so in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, Aya Shameimaru, a photographing tengu, was introduced. As the new photography game was being created, the Touhou fanbook Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red was in production. This book contained various interviews that Aya had done with other characters. The photography game was intended to be a minigame on the Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red CD, but it ended up as the 9.5th Touhou game.

The idea was to add new stages to the game as time went by. [1] However, ZUN later announced that there would not be new stages, as he wanted to move on to newer projects. [2]

Story

In Shoot the Bullet, you play as Aya Shameimaru as she photographs the bosses from various Touhou games. However, no one ever reveals why she is taking these photos. In fact, at one point it is pointed out that "No one knows the purpose of the photos, except Aya", and the only reason she does not shoot the opponents is "not to be nice, but because she doesn't want her bullets in the picture."

An arranged version of "Retrospective Kyoto" (レトロスペクティブ京都) would be included in the "ZUN's Music Collection" CD Retrospective 53 minutes. In the following CD, Magical Astronomy, the third photo theme, "Sleepless Night of the Eastern Country" (東の国の眠らない夜), was also featured.

Press

ZUN announced the game on his blog Invisible Games and Japanese on November 13, 2005, with some screenshots.[4] These screenshots were supplemented in later blog posts.[5][6] The game was released at Comiket 69 on the 30th of December, 2005. In the following month, three patches were released over a period of three days.[1][7][8][9]